The saints everlasting rest

If these arguments will not rouse up thy love, thou hast more of this nature at hand: thou hast all Christ's personal excellencies to study; thou hast all his particular mercies to thyself; thou hast all his sweet and near relations to thee, and thou hast th• happiness of thy perpetual abode with him hereafter. All these offer themselves to thy meditation, with all their several branches. Only follow them close to thy heart, ply the work, and let in not cool: deal with thy heart, as Christ did with Peter, when he asked thrice over, Lovest thou me? till he was grieved, and answer, Lord, thou know s• that I love thee. So say to thy heart, lovest thou the LORD? and ask it the second time, and urge it the third time, lovest thou the LORD? till thou grieve it, and shame it out of its stupidity, and it can truly say, thou knowest that I love him.

2. The next affection to be excited is desire. The object of it is goodness not yet attained. This being so necessary an attendant of love, and being excited much by the same considerations, I suppose you need the less direction, and therefore I shall touch but briefly on this; if love be hot, desire will not be cold.

When thou hast thus viewed the goodness of the LORD, and considered the pleasures that are at his right-hand, the• […] •••tation thus: think with thyself, where have I been, what have I ⟨p. 349⟩seen? O the incomprehensible astonishing glory! O the rare transcendent beauty! O blessed souls that now enjoy it! that see a thousand times more clearly, what I have seen but darkly at this distance, and scarce discern through the interposing clouds! What a difference is there betwixt my state and theirs! I am sighing, and they are singing: I am sinning, and they are pleasing GOD: I ha an ulcerated soul, like the loathsome bodies of Job or Lazarus, but they are perfect and without blemish: I am here entangled in the love of the world, when they are taken up with the love of GOD: I live indeed amongst the means of grace, and I posses the fellowship of my fellow-be-lievers; but I have none of their immediate views of GOD, none of that fellowship that they possess: they have none of my cares and fears; they weep not in secret; they languish not in sorrows; all tears are wined away from their eyes. O what a feast hath my saith beheld, and what a famine is yet in my spirit! I have seen a glimpse of the court of GOD, but alas. I stand but as a beggar at the doors, when the souls of my companions are admitted in. O blessed souls! I may not, I dare not envy your happiness; I rather rejoice in my brethren's prosperity, and am glad to think of the day when I shall be admitted into your fellowship. But O that I were so happy as to be in your place; not to displace you, but to rest there with you. Why must I stay and groan, and weep, and wait? My LORD is gone, he hath left this earth, and is entered into his glory: my brethren are gone, my friends are there, my house, my hope, my all is there: […] must I stay behind to sojourn here! What precious, […] have left this earth! If the saints were all here, if Christ were here, then it were no grief for me to stay: but when my soul is so far distant from my GOD, wonder not if I now complain; an ignorant Micah will do so for his idol, and shall not my soul do so for GOD? And yet if I had no hope of enjoying,